Reviews: Irwin Quick-Grip XP600 Clamp/Spreader

I needed to pick up 4 clamps for a glue up, and it was between the Bessey DuoKlamp and the Irwin Quick-Grip. I haven’t seen any reviews or posts about the newish Irwin XP-600 line, so I thought I’d post my thoughts.
Bessey Duo-Klamps:I recently started using Bessey K-Body parallel clamps and I’ve been impressed, so I bought 4 24” DuoKlamps. One of the features offered with them is the ability to switch from clamping to spreading with the switch of a dial. This seems...

Way back when (after home ownership but before my woodworking hobby), I thought that these beefy Irwin Quick-Grip XP600 were the most awesome clamps. After all, why would I want a heavy clamp (i.e. the parallel clamps a few inches away at the big box store) where I’d have to use 2 hands?
Fast forward a few years, and I now have a more realistic perspective of these clamps. Recently, I splurged and picked up 8 of the 12” model from my local Home Depot. My decision was prompte...